1 Little progress: Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad pulled out of a planned meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuon Tuesday, torpedoing what was set to be the highest-level talks between the sides in nearly two years. The meeting with Netanyahu, attended by two lower level Palestinian officials in Jerusalem, ended with a brief joint statement pledging to seek peace. It signaled little progress was made.

2 Widows deported:Osama bin Laden's three widows and their nine children were scheduled to be deported to Saudi Arabia overnight, almost a year after U.S. Navy SEALs killed the al Qaeda chief at a compound in northwest Pakistan, their lawyer said Tuesday. The family was detained by Pakistani authorities immediately after the pre-dawn raid on May 2 in Abbottabad.

3 No deal: North Korea said Tuesday that it was abandoning an agreement it made in February with the United States, in which it promised to suspend uranium enrichment, nuclear tests and long-range missile tests in exchange for food aid. Washington also promised not to have "hostile intent" against the North. The North Korean Foreign Ministry rejected the U.N. Security Council's condemnation of its failed rocket launching last week and that it would continue to launch rockets to try to place satellites into orbit.

4 Hostage release: An Italian tourist abducted in Algeria by al Qaeda's North African branch headed home Tuesday night after spending more than a year in captivity. Maria Sandra Mariani boarded a plane in the West African nation of Burkina Faso that had been sent by Italian government. There were no details about whether a ransom was paid. Mariani was abducted in Algeria's remote southern desert by members of al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa while on a visit organized by a travel agency.

5 Bodies identified: The remains of a Minnesota couple who died when a cruise ship capsized in Italy were publicly identified Tuesday, several weeks after the bodies were found in the wreck of the Costa Concordia and two months after their family held a memorial service. Barbara and Gerald Heil, of White Bear Lake, were the only Americans who died in the Jan. 13 accident. Thirty-two people died when the luxury liner struck a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio.

6 Prison uprising ends: Brazilian officials say rebellious inmates in the northeastern city of Aracaju have released 131 hostages, ending an uprising that lasted 26 hours. The 470 inmates agreed to end their rebellion after officials agreed to investigate complaints including alleged beatings by guards.

7 Secret files: Long-forgotten files carrying secret documents from the waning days of the British Empire were opened to the public Wednesday, the first of several releases that promise new insights to an imperial power that stretched from Antigua to Yemen. The 8,800-odd colonial records were considered too sensitive to leave behind as the empire began to splinter. Academics, lawyers and journalists are poised to comb through the archive hunting for evidence of British misdeeds - particularly in Kenya, where colonial enforcers executed, tortured and maimed thousands of people during the 1950s crackdown on Mau Mau rebels. Among the tens of thousands of people detained was President Obama's grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama.